Samsung may consistently tussle with Apple as to who is the largest smartphone maker in the world in terms of shipments, but that doesn’t mean the South Korean tech giant isn’t immune to a sudden change of plans – even when it comes to its flagship products.

According to reports, Samsung is cancelling its Galaxy Z TriFold folding Android phone just three months into its life. The device, which has a large internal display that folds twice into three panels (hence ‘TriFold’) came out in Korea in December and then the US in January as an evolution of the firm’s popular Galaxy Z Fold folding phone line up.

But a Samsung spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that sales of the TriFold, which costs $2,899 in the US, would stop in Korea soon and would only continue to be on sale in the US until the inventory runs out (via The Verge).

That dashes all hopes of a UK launch of Samsung’s most advanced folding phone, which boasts a mammoth 10-inch folding display on a device that can still fit into a pocket. Despite this, it’s still only 12.9mm when folded up, with a 6.5-inch external screen a similar size to a normal slab smartphone.

Korean outlet Dong-A Ilbo reported the TriFold will be restocked in Korea this week, with reports on Reddit of US buyers finding them for sale in stores across the country. But it seems as though this is one Samsung phone destined to be very rare indeed, with Dong-A Ilbo claiming only 6,000 units have been sold in Korea since the December launch.

So, it seems the Galaxy Z TriFold was only ever intended to be a showcase of Samsung’s technical prowess rather than a phone it expected to sell en masse. The reports suggest high production costs are to blame, as well as the rise in component costs to make such a complex device.

It was also surely hobbled by its eye-watering price tag, which was about $1,000 more expensive than the already very pricey Galaxy Z Fold 7.

The news of the TriFold’s demise comes a few weeks after the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S26 range, which by comparison is an incredibly safe bet from Samsung, with very similar design and specs to Galaxy S phones from previous years.

The TriFold has shown that Samsung can still innovate with new and interesting form factors thanks to its industry might, and the phone may well have been an advert to other companies given Samsung has a parallel display tech business that sells screens to Android rival firms to use on their own devices.